Hair straightening or hair relaxing products have been commercially available for over fifty years for people who want straighter, more manageable hair. Most commercially available hair relaxers are composed of a strong hydroxide base that permanently alters hair shape by chemically targeting keratin's cross-linked bonds
Commercial products based only on alkaline metal hydroxides such as sodium hydroxide and lithium hydroxide are typically used to straighten or relax curly/kinky hair. There are primarily four different types of alkaline hydroxide hair straighteners in use: guanidine hydroxide, lithium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, and potassium hydroxide. The straightening generally occurs within 20-25 minutes. Because all are strong-base relaxers capable of degrading hair keratin, all can over process the hair causing irreversible damage to the fibrous keratin structure leading to hair breakage.
This present invention reduces the total alkalinity thus reducing the chance of degradation of hair keratin as well as over processing the hair, thus decreasing the chance of hair breakage and loss.